Kathryn Mitchell, who grew up in Casterton, has been ranked consistently among the best female Javelin throwers in Australia and the World for the last decade. Kathryn has represented Australia at the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics where she finished 6th in a very close event where 2nd and 6th were separated by 56cm.

Having represented Australia at the 2006 and 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she finished sixth and fifth respectively, Kathryn finished 4th at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. In 2018, at the age of 35, she achieved her two longest throws of her career, including reaching one of her goals of taking the national record with a throw of 67.58m. In February 2018 she won the Australian title, her first for 10 years, with a throw of 65.51m qualifying her for her fourth Commonwealth Games team. Her extraordinary season continued when she again broke the Australian record when she launched the javelin to 68.57m at the Victorian Championships in March 2018. This form continued onto the Commonwealth Games where she won gold with a throw of 68.92 m, a Commonwealth Games, Australian and Oceanian record. It also ranks her seventh on the world all-time list. For her achievements in 2018, Kathryn was also awarded the Athletics Australia Female Athlete of the year at recent awards ceremony which is an amazing achievement. Kathryn is now preparing for the 2019 World Championships and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics where we are all excited to see what she can achieve. Unfortunately, Kathryn could not be here tonight to accept the award as she is currently in Europe preparing for the upcoming Diamond League season and the World Championships later this year.